A couple of years ago, my wife fiancée Tina had a terrible experience dealing with a Verizon rep over the phone. The whole conversation happened on speakerphone and I could hear every part of it. I specifically remember the rep insinuating Tina was a liar and that she didn’t know what she was talking about. That was the end of her with Verizon. We canceled her plan that day and got her on AT&T.

Today, I went with Penny, my mother in law, to Verizon so she can upgrade her 2 year old dumbphone for a brand new and shiny iPhone 4S. I didn’t even try to talk Penny out of using Verizon because her whole family has been using them forever, she’s got a family plan covering 5 phones/users. Although I didn’t bother talking to her about considering switching to AT&T, I couldn’t help telling her that I think Verizon sucks. Big time…

We walked in the store knowing exactly what she was going to buy: a 16GB white iPhone 4S. There was no doubt in her mind that it was what she wanted, which technically should have made the sales guy’s job easier.

We checked in with the friendly guy at the door. He informed us we’d have to wait for a few minutes, which was fine since we had nothing else to do. During that time, I checked out a few gigantic Android devices that I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to use, but that’s another story.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, a Verizon sales guy named Edward came over to us, confirmed with Penny that she was indeed Penny, and asked her what she was looking for. The conversation went something like that (note that I can’t emphasize how rude the rep sounded):

Penny: I want to buy a white iPhone 4S, 16GB.

Rep: Do you already own an iPad or a Mac at home?

Penny: Yes, I have an iPad and an iMac.

Rep: Ok, I actually recommend you check out a few Android devices. They are much better phones with faster data speeds and bigger screens.

Penny: But I just want an iPhone.

Rep: Yes but you should definitely check out these phones over there. If you already have an iPad, you want to try something new, something different, because an iPhone is kinda boring.

Me: An iPhone is what?

Rep: An iPhone is boring!

Penny: No, I want an iPhone.

Rep, looking terribly bummed out: Ok, follow me to the counter.

No hello, no please, no smile, no personality, no care for the customer. Zero. None!

At this point, if I had been in Penny’s shoes, I would have just left the store, or asked to talk to a Manager because the level of customer service was as good as what you’d expect from a prison guard. Penny looked at me as I did a scary face trying to convey that this guy was a total douche, and I told her we could leave if she didn’t feel comfortable. Again, I would have just left but that’s me, and I know I can be hard to please.

We walked to the counter and waited for Edward. He showed up a minute or 2 later with an iPhone box in his hand. Still extremely unfriendly and obviously disappointed that we even considered doing business with him today, he asked for a few signatures, barely looking at us, picking up and throwing his pen every few seconds on the counter as if we were really pissing him off.

In an incredible effort, he informed us there was a $30 (or around that price) upgrade fee, then he gave us the total amount without explaining us that when you buy an iPhone, you pay taxes on the full price of the phone ($650) and not just on the subsidized price you pay in store ($200). This brought some confusion and once again, we had to extract the information out of him. It looked painful.

He put the iPhone box in a bag, handed Penny her iPhone, thanked us and said goodbye. These last 5 seconds must have taken a huge toll on him as he clearly wasn’t accustomed to show any kind of emotion, or even respect for his customers.

It’s hard to translate into words how careless this Verizon employee was. He clearly didn’t give a shit (excuse my French). We were annoying him and wasting his time, and you could tell.

I understand there are always a few black sheeps in large corporations like Verizon, and your experience will greatly vary from one store to another, but this was just unacceptable. Penny said she will call Verizon customer service and complain. I said I will just write an angry post because that’s the only thing I can do.

One thing is sure after today. I will never switch to Verizon, no matter how great their LTE coverage is supposed to be or how attractive their “un-unlimited unlimited data plan” looks like. I’d rather be doomed to use Edge for the rest of my life than give a dollar to these people.

Have you ever had a terrible experience with an iPhone carrier? If so, make sure to share with us in the comments section below.

it has no gotten any better, I am trying to get one tv fixed and I used to work for them and they still can’t fix it.

Disqus11111

Have you finished third grade or did you drop out?

chris

I went to buy an Iphone from Verizon, I was out of the store within the first four minutes after calling the sales rep a “see you next tuesday” and tell her to do the world a favor and kill herself. I think being a slothy pile of shit is in the job description.

Your a real nice person….and your post is lacking in explaining any real reason for one to be such a piece of shit to another human being.

Disqus11111

You seem confused as to who is the “slothy pile of shit”. Look in the mirror.

jd

And they just took away are unlimited data if we upgrade even if we had the sevice for ten years like myself

rettaman

First of all, I have been a Verizon client since July of 2009, but as soon as my contract is over in June of 2015, I will TRY to go somewhere else! I wish I could terminate my contract now!

Anyway, I was in a Verizon (“A”) Wireless store in Clayton, NC on Highway 42 on June 12th, 2013 to replace my dying Droid 3. The sales rep’s name was Tabitha Ammons. She was very nice at first and I told her that I wasn’t sure which phone to get. I did get the Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere II. I purchased a few accessories for a total of $164 and some change. I had to renew my contract (stupid me!) in order to get a new phone. Tabitha told me that I could return the phone without any fees by Friday, June 14th. I did return the phone and was going to get the iPhone 5.

However, I feel as though I was tricked into getting the iPhone 4 with FREE accessories even though I told Tabitha I was interested in either the i4s or i5. She led me to believe that I was getting the i4s. She also told me that I could exchange that phone by Sunday without any fees whatsoever. I paid $33 and some change for some accessories and such. I also was told that I would be receiving a refund from my purchase on June 12th. (As of today, June 19th, I haven’t seen any refund on my credit card account.)

Well, I tried to exchange the iPhone 4 on Sunday, June 16th because I really wanted the iPhone 5. When I went back to Verizon, I was informed there would be a $70 restocking fee. I told the sales rep there (Tabitha wasn’t there) that Tabitha told me that I could exchange the phone twice. I was told that I could not. I feel as though I was deceived.

On Monday, June 17th, Tabitha called and left a voicemail telling me that she was SORRY that she told me the wrong information. (Yeah, right! Liar!) She also told me that I could NOT return the iPhone at all even though my “contract” (which is not even respected by Verizon) let me know that I could. But, who at Verizon cares anyway???

VERIZON SUCKS!!!

PS – On Friday, June 14th, Verizon told me they were NOT able to transfer my contact list from the Droid to the iPhone even though they were able to do TWO transfers in July of 2009 AND July of 2011. Why? Cause they suck!

Disqus11111

Are you really as stupid as you claim you are?

Poop

thats what you get for buying an iphone.

Guest

Lmfao this story is complete bullshit.
The iphones are now there top selling phone s you dumbshit.

KaayC

Actually now having both the new droids are looking oretty cute. Much brighter display. Lots of free apps. My honeys droid is looking sweet.

joannajw

Verizon sucks. They stole all the money in my (prepaid) account. Now they say it wasn’t really my money, just money I added to keep the account active in order to make & receive calls. Huh? If I didn’t make & receive those calls isn’t it still my money? I will bad mouth them every place I can & cancel my account before the next renewal date.

Disqus11111

BS. If you paid your bills on time and had decent credit you wouldn’t have this problem, would you? I guarantee you agreed to all fees and charges and stupidly never bothered to read what you were agreeing to. Now you want to blame them. You’re making a fool of yourself. Stop it. I’m sure they were glad to get rid of you.

Eisenhower Republican

Irrelevant of the carrier, most – not all – but most cell phone sales people are low rent slime balls.

Richard Hill

If you have to deal with bad service, why not pay lower rates and go with Straight Talk. You basically get a choice to use the AT&T networks or the Tmobile networks. Why bother getting screwed twice? I settle for bad customer service and only pay $45 a month for no contract unlimited everything.

Craig J

Personally I would rather own pretty much ANY android phone than an iCrap, but that’s just my opinion and I understand everyone has their taste. But I had a similar experience at Verizon. I wanted the new Nokia Lumia Icon Windows phone, the rep said they didn’t have any and never would they didn’t like Windows phones. Then he proceeded to show me a new Droid phone. I told him I had a
Samsung Galaxy S4 and I wanted the Lumia Icon because I’ve had to fix my Galaxy S4 twice (had to send it back to Samdung). He started saying he didn’t like the Windows phones, blah, blah blah. Well, its my choice, the Lumia Icon is very popular and has good reviews and I was more than annoyed he couldn’t help me out with it. He also gave me the wrong info about Verizon Edge, he had no clue what he was talking about.

This story is loaded with BS. The sales tax claim is totally bogus. The added drama enhancements on the reps behavior don’t help the story. AT&T and Verizon reps were following orders pushing Android devices. The situation described happened over and over at both companies. The dude would probably have been fired if he didn’t push hard. The idea this was exclusive to Verizon is garbage. I’ve had long periods of simultaneous service from both companies and have never found AT&T to be superior in any way.

Also the fact it was an iPhone has nothing to do with lousy customer service unless it was company policy to treat iPhone customers badly. AT&T is much renown for bad customer service than Verizon has ever has been.

David Foushee

DAF

Any wonder why Verizon service has gotten worse. Well being a 10 plus year customer with an average bill of around 300, I became frustrated when my phone went from 3-4 bars to 0. It wasn’t just my phone but every phone on the plan used by the family. Dropped calls, no signal, and enough of the can you hear me now lead to 4 hours on the phone one night, and three hours on another Verizon doesn’t know. (of if they do they are not talking). Suddenly 4 years later we find that Verizon now announces we are in a marginal coverage area. Really? Concord, NC is marginal? Something about the trees growing up. Really? Save yourself some pain use AT and T… cause Verizon simply doesn’t care.

Matt Sutton

Well the rep was right about getting an Android phone over the iturd, though.

Vinny Brucker

Verizon’s far better than AT&T, more coverage, and AT&T will throttle your data if you use it a lot. Verizon doesn’t do that. Don’t say it isn’t true, I’ve experienced it on my aunt’s iPhone 5 on AT&T. She didn’t even have unlimited data, only 5GB. Once you hit around the half way mark, speeds started to drop, even though it had LTE. And that was happening every month, not just some fluke. Verizon doesn’t do that, I’ve went all the way to my data cap, speeds never changed. I and what the guy was saying, that isn’t being a bad sales man, that IS being salesman. Android phone usually cost a bit more, so they’d get more commission, which equals a bigger pay check for them. I have a MacBook as well as a 4S myself. I love my Mac, and iPhones are good phones, but he’s right. They are boring. Plus, Android is a lot better for on the go school work and stuff like that. I can’t open a Word, Power Point, or Excel document on my iPhone, but I can on my Droid Maxx with out a problem.

ch

they S U C K !!!!!

TheDrunkenClam

I should have stopped reading when this smug Chach said “gigantic android devices I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy”.

Michael Badalamento

They all suck ass! They all throttle the shit out of a pathetic data signal… 4glte majority of people have NO CLUE what there true data speed is…. Be lucky if it were 600kbs and that’s on a good day!

Perhaps Verizon has some beef with Apple! I know I would, being an Android lover myself, but is no denying the great coverage Verizon provides, despite having unhelpful service like many phone providers… . I would even prefer that rep actually try to convince me why one phone is better than another. Like if you can outsmart them, there’s no need for them to make things difficult. You should come to Spain where service is not a thing; more than 85% of the time, they won’t know an answer to a question.

Britanny Walton

Never been a Verizon customer before.I know there’s people who exaggerate things.And others who are just not happy no matter what ya do.But I’m niether so here’s my first and worst experience.
I ordered the new apple 6 online. This was around 10 A.M. this morning.They said to order by 5 P.M. to assure next day shipping. So I did.I paid for the AM delivery so I didn’t have to wait until ups brought it at 8 p.m. Well it’s now 10 P.M. 12 hours later and the order status still says processing. Getting worried about mailling deadlines to make it by the next day. I contacted support via older model ATT apple.They hadn’t even processed my paperwork yet. Yep that’s right. The guy tells me it’ll be friday dec.25 when i get my phone. Christmas delivery? Really? I highly doubt this. Saturday at the most sensible to me. So why did 9i bother paying over 600 dollars for my phone,Plus 15 to overnight it.And still get it some where 5 days later >.< Okay I am just returning that phone to sender.Walking into an ATT outlet and coming home to enjoy my old service with my new phone.
Seriously.Why is the word service even in that title? Customer service? HAHA.
More like customer".Please get off the phone.I know it's my job,But we honestly do not gave a (Insert word here).."
Verizon can go to blazes for all I care.I will never even look at thier name from now on.My very first worst and only experience with Verizon. Thank you for listenning.

daz4190

next time, just buy an iphone elsewhere. online/from apple/amazon/wherever. Buying a phone from a carrier means you are not only overpaying but you will be getting a subpar firmware loaded with carrier garbage. I am starting to think people only use Verizon because they think they are the best for some reason. In reality, they are not and in many large cities even T-Mobile is better